It's Only A Paper Moon

DVD, DS9 S7 (It's Only A Paper Moon) (2)

"Compared to you, I'm as hollow as a snare drum." That's the main thing I take away from this story of Nog's rehabilitation in Vic Fontaine's holoprogram: the difference between reality and fantasy, just like the Nexus in 'Generations' where Kirk realises nothing matters in that world. He had his Picard to help persuade him that there's a real life out there that needs him to make a difference, and Nog has Vic, only things get a little cloudier this time as the longer Nog stays in the Holosuite, the longer Vic can experience full-time living. Because, unlike the EMH on Voyager, Vic is a fellow sentient hologram that doesn't get to live a normal life. Like the Doctor he contributes to the wellbeing of the crew, doing what he was programmed to do, performing for them, but for the first time he gets to sleep in a bed, has time to read the paper, keep his books or watch some TV, and it could be suggested he has every right to try and manipulate Nog into staying permanently, if the young Ferengi wasn't already intent on the idea. But it shows Vic's honest reality that he sees himself for what he is. We could argue around the holographic houses as to whether any or all holograms can be called living and a life form (I think it has to be a case by case basis otherwise it becomes very difficult to support Holodecks being used at all, like some form of entertainment industry slavery!), but Vic knows Nog's real life is of exponentially more value than his own computerised puppetry, no matter how real it is to him, so he urges for the selfless way and orders Nog to leave when the time has come.

When you realise just how close to the Doctor Vic is, you can see what a big deal it is for him to put Nog's good before his own: he knows he's a hologram, so that's a form of sentience. He has the power to turn his program on and off when he wills it (again, a tricky concept to grasp if we understand him to be conscious somehow when his program's off, otherwise how could he reappear…?), and he experiences his existence as if the fantasy is reality. This is what draws Nog to his humble abode. At first it was the song that got him through the injury, but then when he sees what kind of place Vic's is, a lightbulb comes on and he thinks of staying there. Vic is accommodating, as he's designed to be, but there's more to him than that because he can be devious: he agrees with Ezri to try and wean Nog off the cane, something he succeeds at immediately by gifting his new friend a brand new, and better, cane, more befitting of the era (a remake of Errol Flynn's, he says), inadvertently winning his young charge over even more because it reminds Nog of the Grand Nagus' own cane! So sometimes Vic has some kind of intuition, and others it's just blind chance that he stumbles on the right thing, but he's not just Mr. Nicey-Nicey, he has hard words for Nog when he belts Jake in a rage for bringing his girlfriend with him to visit. And later, when he sees that Nog is no longer dependent on the cane he closes the program down himself. Everything works to show how 'human' Vic is, which is why he seems to real: he puts others before his own self, he's humble because he sees himself as he really is.

Like the Biblical instruction, Vic lays down his own life to find it, because he gives up the juicy proposition of continued existence, a life he can really get into (and he's not even constrained by the building as he says he and Nog were going to visit the architect of a new casino they plan to build), for the sake of Nog's, which leads to him getting that life back at the end when Nog arranges for his program to run indefinitely! So it's a great parable and only makes you respect Vic even more. It's a funny situation as a viewer, because Vic's time is so long ago that we're caught between the Sixties and the future century of the series, both equally alien to us (unless you were around in that time, and even then, you'd have had to be in that part of the world and of that particular age to be completely at home in Vic's world), yet we feel welcome in both. The larger parallel, or one of them, can be that we, as many people do, find solace in Trek, some of us would love to live in that world - not the one where you get your leg blown off in the front lines of a war, or any of the other equally horrible ways to get injured or die, but the adventure, couched in a secure optimism based on positive experiences, is an enticing prospect. This story is almost a warning not to get too wrapped up in this universe and its characters because your real life is far more important than this place where nothing really means anything. One of the best lines about real life is Vic's: "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but at least you're in the game." If a hologram can be somewhat envious of even the most mundane life that is real, we shouldn't take it for granted. Paying visits is fine, but don't live there, just as Sisko had to be taught by The Prophets not to live in the moment of his wife's death.

When Trek is teaching us these things is when it's at its best, beyond the average sci-fi drama. Yes, the characters are important (the idea of running a whole episode round two recurring guests shows their ability to create enduring, fascinating ones to people this make-believe world), the drama and stories that open the mind up to ideas and speculation make it exciting, but it's the warm, joyful learning experiences that make the difference. Vic has a covenant with his patrons that they will come to his establishment, enjoy his entertainments, then go back to the real world, switching him on and off like the lightbulb he calls himself, and he's happy with that. Until he has a taste of what life could be for him, then there's a slight wisp of discontentment in his program, but this only drives him harder to force Nog to accept that his life is important, a precious commodity not to be hidden away from reality and wasted on holographic profit. The idea of free will is broached between Nog and O'Brien ("I'm an Engineer, not a philosopher"), since he has the ability to open up or close his program down by choice. It's not something 'DS9' really explored, leaving it to 'Voyager' to deal with holographic rights and the ramifications of what it could all mean (one reason why a series set in the latter part of the 24th Century or beyond is so appealing - to see how these things develop), but one thing they did do was to expand Vic's character beyond his original small role, giving him a full-time life!

The only problem I see with this is that there must be different shifts, so some might wish to turn up at Vic's mid-morning for a concert, but he'd still be in bed after a long night! Not that it matters, I'm sure they could have the program run in another Holosuite at the same time, duplicating Vic, but would there be ethical concerns with that? Could the two programs interact? Maybe that would have made a good story where multiple Vics are supposed to be playing, but in fact the computer can only cope with one of him, so he's running himself ragged leaping between performances. There's so much they could have done with his character if they'd had more time, like say another twenty seasons, so it would still be running today, just like Vic's program! This season has shown what the writers could do if they were allowed even more free rein over their product. We'd seen all kinds of wacky or satisfying conglomerations, but you could never have guessed that Nog and a holographic buddy in Vic Fontaine would be an obvious pairing for a story. It's strange that Nog grew as a character and into a role, more than Jake Sisko, his good friend, who doesn't get much to do in the series' final season. So it's nice to see him show up a bit in this episode, even though they're almost cameos and this is far from the hew-mon/Ferengi fun and japes they used to have, being a more serious story. We see that they share Quarters on the station (Jake looks a lot younger in his pyjamas!), that Jake tries to get on with the depressed Ferengi, and goes as far as bringing Kesha, his Bajoran girlfriend, along to Vic's to try and cheer Nog up, but Jake isn't the one who can help Nog.

I would have liked to have seen a scene where Nog makes up with the pair he so upset, but it would have been unnecessary for the story as it's enough to witness him walking without the cane again. On that subject I still don't know if he was truly experiencing phantom pain from his biosynthetic leg, or whether he was actively lying to try and escape from the frightening reality he had woken up to. He says he realised he could die and so was terrified of what might happen out in the real world, so it could be that he made it up as an excuse to avoid dealing with his issues, or he genuinely did feel the pain, and it was brought on by mental anguish. At least he had such understanding friends and colleagues that allowed him the time to come to terms with his new leg and to heal. It's so rare to have all the main characters together in one scene - I'm not even sure if this could be about the only time in the entire series when we see everyone, from Worf to Quark, Jake to Kira, all in the Cargo Bay to welcome Nog's return from his operation. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't remember a group scene with the whole cast, since Jake would usually be left out of Starfleet matters, and Worf hadn't always been there. I suppose at the end, in the final episode they all gather at Vic's. Armin Shimerman, or whoever it was, was right when he said about the non-Starfleet characters that they wouldn't have much to do in the war, because that's the way it panned out: Quark's in the group scene, and joins in the family hug at the end, but, like Jake, he was severely underused this season, less space for simple tales of Ferengi mischief and profiteering as seen in the early seasons.

Quark shows how warmhearted he is in the most potent way possible: through the loss of cold, hard profits in his reluctant agreement to Sisko to allow Nog to stay in the Holosuite, after piping up asking who was going to pay for all this time. I loved the little joke when Vic's worried about 'Uncle Sam' coming down hard on him if his books aren't kept properly, and Nog says he's got an Uncle a bit like that, neither really on the same wavelength, but also making some kind of sense, at least to the audience in the know! Although I would have liked to see a more comedic scene with the full main cast, along the lines of the brilliant one in Kira's Quarters in 'The Circle' where everyone goes to say goodbye, it wouldn't have been appropriate to the mood, and humour in the episode comes from Nog and Vic's strange partnership, or even non-humorous fun moments (for those of us that like old Westerns, for example), like when Nog watches 'Shane' or says that he prefers 'The Searchers.' It's not 'Hollow Pursuits,' because Nog's problem, though similar, isn't the same as Reg Barclay's, it's not that he has holodiction, it's that he just doesn't want to face reality so he puts his significant Ferengi business sense into big plans for Vic's place, and Vic is very taken with it, caught up in the rush of living and planning, feeling tired and sleeping. Early on he quotes Starfleet regs at Ezri, that Nog can choose his place of rehabilitation, and later he actually loses sight of his purpose so much that he needs Ezri to remind him that Nog can't stay there forever! It's for both Vic and Nog to find their feet in reality, though a little reality goes a long way for Vic - you get the sense that he's actually privileged to be allowed to spend time with real people whose lives matter, as opposed to dead holo-matter, so it's a delight to see him revel in it.

One thing I was impressed with was the flashback: the first one where we see Lieutenant Larkin's shock death from a Jem'Hadar bolt, then Nog's vicious wounding, was useful, but only made me wish they could have done a scene from that episode that we didn't see, or an existing scene from a different perspective, but then I thought that it's not a film and they didn't have the budget to go recreating scenes from other episodes and it was too much to ask. Then there's another flashback where Bashir tells Nog about the song he's hearing and explains who Vic is, after the attack where Nog lies in the field hospital with Quark lounging nearby. I wasn't sure, but I thought it hadn't been in 'The Siege of AR-558,' and checking Memory Alpha confirmed it. What a great idea and so pleasing for them to do that when it's such a rarity on Trek. We occasionally have been given the gift of seeing the Bridge of 'TOS' Enterprise, or other parts of Constitution-class vessels, and even a recreation of the Enterprise-D, but this was a much smaller scene that you could easily mistake for being taken from that previous episode, done without fanfare, and it was wonderful. The only thing I didn't understand is how Nog wouldn't know who Vic is or not have been to that program since it's been so popular with everyone. His Dad, Rom, even auditioned for Vic there, but it's highly possible that Rom and Nog don't see each other often, both on different jobs (Rom's promotion to Engineer First Class was thrown in as an aside, but shows that he continues to progress thanks to his diligence and hard work, another little sign of where he'd end up, perhaps).

As usual, it's a testament to the writers and actors, and everyone involved that such a thoughtful episode could be created out of such a small premise as a Ferengi losing a leg in battle. I like that it doesn't follow on immediately from that episode (just as 'Coming of Age' and 'Conspiracy' on 'TNG' weren't consecutive - it makes the fictional world seem bigger and more consistent), and that it's a very different episode to 'AR-558.' It's not as much an emotional episode as I thought, not until the end when Nog can't keep it in any more and he has to be honest with Vic, but it's a nice place to visit and Vic gets to sing a few songs along the way, only adding to the cosy atmosphere. It's as much his episode as Nog's, but the pair of them carry it so well that it makes me wish we'd had even more episodes like this where a couple of relatively minor characters got to interact on a mission or in a situation that formed the majority of the episode. It could almost have gone another way and been yet more chance for Ezri to practice her counselling skills - like Garak, for instance, she keeps getting patients that don't want to talk to her, it's a wonder she keeps going. Maybe she counsels herself? But she doesn't overpower this one, she's here just to leaven the story a little, add something that makes sense for her character to be doing, without taking the limelight away from the real stars of the show: a lightbulb and a one-legged Ferengi. And it only takes one little Ferengi to change a lightbulb, badoom-tish!

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